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VOLVO MASTERSOctober 31, 2008David GarlandJohn ParamorSAN ROQUE, SPAIN MICHAEL GIBBONS: Thanks for coming in quite unfortunate circumstances for us all being here but I'm sure most of you know the top table, but I'll introduce them anyway, far right, John Paramor, Chief Referee for The European Tour. To John's left is David Garland, Director of Tour Operations and Tournament Director for the Volvo Masters; and in the middle we have the referee from the Spanish Golf Federation, Julian Zuluetta. And on my right, the wonderful MarÃÂa Acacia. I'm just going to hand it over to David, if you can maybe explain the decisions today and we'll go from there and take some questions. Thank you. DAVID GARLAND: This morning, we had a forecast of the rain to pass through this area in three hours and because the wind speed being strong, we didn't have that much rain forecast. As soon as that front seemed to hit us, it seemed to slow down and that's why we've had such continual rain today. There was a lot more rain that was forecast. Initially there was a big window of about three or four hours of clear weather because of another front coming in, roll out over west of Portugal and that has been moving very fast and has joined up with the first front; and that's why if you hear now, we've got the intensity that we have because both front have come together. So we called play at 12.08pm. The course was unplayable. Fairways and a number of greens were flooded. There was no relief from the fairways. Sometimes relief had to be in the rough and behind trees, etc. We called play for the day at 3.10pm and we will restart tomorrow morning at hopefully 8.30am on the golf course. We have that final decision with the greens staff and the club to see if we can get the golf course ready in that time. Depends on the damage tonight if we can get the golf course ready for that time tomorrow. We're very confident because of how good the Valderrama staff are. With five hours of play approximately remaining and if we get away at 8.30am, we should finish by 1.30pm, redraw, two-tee start, three balls, two o'clock to half past three, and minds you, these are all approximate times and at the end of tomorrow night we may have only two hours left to complete. That said, the forecast for tomorrow is for quite heavy showers and some of those may have thunder and lightning in them. So it's not a clear run yet. Q. Were there players who felt you could have acted sooner? DAVID GARLAND: Yes, there were. JOHN PARAMOR: Hi, Lewine. I can tell you approximately an hour before we actually stopped play, we were preparing to suspend play at that stage. And we were waiting for one last sort of word from our meteorologist, and as we were waiting for that one word -- (looking up as intensity of rainfall increases) -- sorry, it's quite bizarre; the rain stopped. And within a very short space of time, the areas that we were worried about on the 4th green and on the 10th green, and one other which escapes me for a minute were all proving to be a little troublesome and difficult to keep water off, suddenly dried up, and so we continued play. But we were, as I say, approximately an hour before, around just before 11 o'clock, we were thinking of stopping play then because of the conditions which were worsening. Q. What was the biggest hard-luck story that you heard from anybody or what were they saying to you? JOHN PARAMOR: I'm not sure there were any hard-luck stories. I don't know, did you hear any? DAVID GARLAND: No. Q. Any complaints? JOHN PARAMOR: There have been one or two players who said we should have been playing preferred lies, and certainly I would take responsibility for that. But when we arrived here this morning, we had, in fact, prepared the sheets ready for preferred lies in case it was needed, and I went around the golf course fairly early this morning, and we did have to change a number of hole locations which were, shall we say, in not the driest spots. We did move them to the driest spots to give us some sort of run, but in terms of the golf course conditioning, it was -- bone dry might be a bit strong, but certainly there was no standing water at all, and really no reason to suspect that we would need preferred lies. Unfortunately with the benefit of hindsight, now I wish that we had of done, because the result is that we will be completing round two without any preferred lies being played. Q. Don't your rules allow you to scrub the scores that have been posted and the holes played? JOHN PARAMOR: That has happened before, Mark, but when there is a very small amount of play, I think that happened when something like three groups had started, and it was the right decision to do that. At this stage, we've had quite a lot of golf completed in the second round, and one of our principles on The European Tour is once a stroke is played, it counts. That was brought in a number of years ago, and that's what we currently have this week. Q. Because your problem now is you can't play the second round, the completion of it with preferred lies, so that could really hold you up tomorrow, couldn't it? JOHN PARAMOR: Well, basically, the preferred lies is required for the surrounds of the greens rather than the fairways themselves. The fairways are absolutely superb; albeit they are a little damp at the moment and there is some standing water on them but they do drain very quickly. Well, they are quite magnificent fairways to be quite honest. But if a player misses a green and pitches into the fringe, then that can give them the situation where they have a mud ball and there are a number of players who feel like every time that happens, there should be preferred lies. Q. Just one more from me, we have the majority of the field going to Shanghai next week, so does that impact on the possibility of Monday? JOHN PARAMOR: Well, David, do you want to do that one? DAVID GARLAND: There's an outline, if we get good weather and we get away with it and miss some of the thunder and lightning, etc., then we can still finish on Sunday night. It is unlikely we'll schedule a full round on Monday, but we will finish a round on Monday if necessary. Q. Would you consider a 54-hole tournament? DAVID GARLAND: Yes, we've had 54-hole tournaments before. Again, these sort of showers, etc., forecast not just for Saturday, but also for Sunday; so we could get a clear day started in Sunday afternoon and we could get a little pop-up thunderstorm and we have half a dozen groups left on the golf course and we finish off. If we run out of time on Saturday and we are struggling with problems. So, 54 is a definite positive possibility. Q. Jimenéz was the biggest sufferer, he's played seven shots in four holes; was he particularly unhappy? Have you had words with him? DAVID GARLAND: Miguel Angel did come in and voice his concerns. He thought it was -- this tournament, everybody should be playing in the same conditions at the same time, and thought that play should never have started this morning. I would say to that that the golf course was playable, as John said, this morning. Conditions were brutal; I would say that. This is a very, very difficult golf course, as we've seen over the years, with the scoring, and it's not designed to be played in a sort of 25-mile-an-hour wind with lashing rain. And so it was a very brutal day. Q. What time was it that you went out? JOHN PARAMOR: It was probably about light. So it must have been roundabout 7.20, 7.25, that I started looking at the golf course, and I suppose when I came back -- I don't know what time I came back, Justin had played a few holes by the time I came back. Q. Did your meteorologist tell you this morning that you could go through the day without any heavy rain at any point, this morning? JOHN PARAMOR: I think we were -- we knew we were going to get some rain, and it's just a question of how heavy that was going to be. Certainly, you know, he kind of feels this is kind of what he would have expected. But certainly there was this, David referred to this window of opportunity, where there was no visible rain on his radar. And we felt that in terms of a restart, we'd have a pretty good chance of restarting today. But that disappeared after the suspension. It just got smaller and smaller and smaller until there's no window at all and now we have this band of rain which has intensified into one solid block of heavy rain. Q. My question is: Why didn't you start in this case with the 50/50 chances with preferred lies immediately this morning? JOHN PARAMOR: I think basically because we had had some heavy rain overnight and the golf course didn't appear to be any the worse for it. And we thought, well, or I thought, well, there's not much damage to be done here. But clearly it's got -- maybe it wasn't as heavy as I thought it was overnight, and certainly as it's turned out to be, it has turned out to be very heavy, and it has affected the golf course. DAVID GARLAND: I think also, that right through The Ryder Cup, with all of the rain we had back in '97 and playing preferred lies, we only played preferred lies in the past I think for one round here because this golf course drains unbelievably. When we checked the golf course out this morning, none of the referees that were out on various parts of the golf course feeding back information into John felt it was a necessity. And the rain that we had forecast, if you like, was to be through in three hours, might be quite heavy, but the heavy periods were to be intermittent because the clouds were moving at such a fast rate at that time and it all got jammed up here. Q. You've outlined the best-case scenario for tomorrow. What if you get the worst-case scenario, a complete washout, what's the least amount of holes that would count for the tournament? DAVID GARLAND: Well, 36 is the least amount of holes for a tournament to count. Q. Would you do that for this event if necessary? DAVID GARLAND: Well, if necessary, yes, that would be -- we'll try and play as many holes as we can but obviously it's all up to the gods in terms of the weather. Q. And would you not play a third round on Monday, it would just be 36 holes? DAVID GARLAND: I believe so, yeah. Q. On the preferred lies, is there any circumstance in which you could order such a regulation during the course of a round? I remember Shinnecock in 2004 when the USGA watered the 7th green; is there any certain sense where you can waive a regulation? JOHN PARAMOR: No, that would be quite a serious condition which would be a difference for different competitors in the same round. No, that wouldn't be acceptable. In terms of the situation you referred to, all that was was to really slow the greens down a fraction so that it became playable from an unplayable position and you know, that was a practical solution. If we proceed preferred lies now, it would not be seen as the same at all. It would be grossly unfair. Q. I might be jumping the gun here, hypothetical anyway, but 36 holes, will you still give the same amount of prize money if that does happen, David, bearing in mind the Order of Merit situation and various other separate battles going on here this week? DAVID GARLAND: As the Americans would say, that decision is probably taken above my pay grade. (Laughter). Per (Ericsson) and George and everybody will be involved in that decision, and that's a long way off and hopefully we won't get to that situation. Q. But that has happened at previous events. DAVID GARLAND: We've had one, yes. I think it was the Catalan Open, Paul Lawrie won on the windy golf course, Bonmont. I think Tour fed quite a bit of the prize fund into that and that was the Tour's decision in that case. But it's early yet. Q. The norm is 75 per cent? DAVID GARLAND: Yeah, again, that is going to be discussed. Q. Just in layman's terms, would you just say, what exactly you meant, are you confident you can get 72 holes finished, not confident, no bloody chance or what (laughter)? DAVID GARLAND: Hopeful. I think it's always a little bit -- when you've had the first two rounds and quite a large amount of play lost, but because of the size of the field that we are able to do two-tee starts, etc. And if push comes to shove that we might have, you know, between the third and the fourth round, just keep the pairings the same and send them out to save ourselves more time. I'm sort of very hopeful that we will get 72 holes. Q. Is there enough daylight for two full rounds in a day? DAVID GARLAND: No, I think not. Not quite. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Everybody, thanks very much. End of FastScripts |
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